Philip Glass: String Quartets 1-4

Stripped of Glass's familiar thudding keyboards and ethereal voices, yet inhabiting that same oscillating sound world, these quartets have their own beguiling power. Number One (1966) is the only oddity, skirting round tonality and written during Glass's time in Paris as a student of Nadia Boulanger. The others date from the 1980s. The short, delicate Number Two provided music for Beckett's elegiac Company, and Number Three was for Paul Schrader's film Mishima. Glass is always at the forefront: his Fourth (1989) was a memorial to artist Brian Buczak who died of HIV-related complications before most people had grasped the term Aids. Admirably played by the Carduccis and at budget price.